Within weeks of lockdown measures shuttering businesses across Canada, the federal government announced broad-reaching emergency income supports. But three months later, and even after government extended existing emergency income supports, many sex workers remain out of work and ineligible to receive emergency income supports, and all are working in precarious conditions.
“Sex workers are one of the most marginalized groups of people in Canada,” said Jenn Clamen, National Coordinator of the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform. “Sex workers and other marginalized groups should be at the heart of the government’s pandemic response, but instead, continue to be ignored. Sex workers’ rights to health, safety, and dignity need to be protected in the context of a pandemic, so that they, too, can support themselves and their families.”
